KNOWING WHAT YOU WANT: MEASURING LABILE VALUES

An article of faith among students of value, choice, and attitude judgments is that people have reasonably well-defined opinions regarding the desirability of various events. Although these opinions may not be intuitively formulated in numerical (or even verbal) form, careful questioning can elicit judgments representing people's underlying values. From this stance, elicitation procedures are neutral tools, bias-free channels that translate subjective feelings into scientifically usable expressions. They impose no views on respondents beyond focusing attention on those value issues of interest to the investigator. What happens, however, in cases where people do not know, or have difficulty appraising, what they want? Under such circumstances, elicitation procedures may become major forces in shaping the values expressed, or apparently expressed, in the judgments they require. They can induce random error (by confusing the respondent), systematic error (by hinting at what the “correct” response is), or unduly extreme judgments (by suggesting clarity and coherence of opinion that are not warranted). In such cases, the method becomes the message. If elicited values are used as guides for future behavior, they may lead to decisions not in the decision maker's best interest, to action when caution is desirable (or the opposite), or to the obfuscation of poorly formulated views needing careful development and clarification. The topic of this chapter is the confrontation between those who hold (possibly inchoate) values and those who elicit values.

[1]  THE VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE. , 1913 .

[2]  H. Helson,et al.  Adaptation-level theory , 1964 .

[3]  Aaron Wildavsky,et al.  The political economy of efficiency - Cost-benefit analysis, systems analysis, and program budgeting , 1966 .

[4]  E. Poulton.  The new psychophysics: Six models for magnitude estimation. , 1968 .

[5]  A. Tversky.  Intransitivity of preferences. , 1969 .

[6]  H. Lindman.  Inconsistent preferences among gambles. , 1971 .

[7]  Eugene Galanter,et al.  Psychological Decision Mechanisms and Perception. , 1972 .

[8]  A. Tversky.  Elimination by aspects: A theory of choice. , 1972 .

[9]  Paul Slovic,et al.  Response-induced reversals of preference in gambling: An extended replication in las vegas , 1973 .

[10]  Michael I. Posner,et al.  Cognition: An Introduction , 1973 .

[11]  Paul Slovic,et al.  Dimensional Commensurability and Cue Utilization in Comparative Judgment. , 1974 .

[12]  W. A. Wagenaar,et al.  Misperception of exponential growth , 1975 .

[13]  K. R. Hammond,et al.  Science, values, and human judgment. , 1976, Science.

[14]  David S. Brookshire,et al.  The valuation of aesthetic preferences , 1976 .

[15]  G. W. Fischer,et al.  Multidimensional utility models for risky and riskless choice , 1976 .

[16]  A. Gouldner.  The dialectic of ideology and technology , 1976 .

[17]  R. Nisbett,et al.  Verbal reports about causal influences on social judgments: Private access versus public theories. , 1977 .

[18]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  Preference for Insuring against Probable Small Losses: Insurance Implications , 1977 .

[19]  MINE OR GARDEN? VALUES AND THE ENVIRONMENT–PROBABLE SOURCES OF CHANGE IN THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS , 1977 .

[20]  C. Turner,et al.  Fallible indicators of the subjective state of the nation. , 1978 .

[21]  E F Loftus,et al.  Semantic integration of verbal information into a visual memory. , 1978, Journal of experimental psychology. Human learning and memory.

[22]  R. Hogarth,et al.  Confidence in judgment: Persistence of the illusion of validity. , 1978 .

[23]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  How safe is safe enough? A psychometric study of attitudes towards technological risks and benefits , 1978 .

[24]  H. Kunreuther.  Disaster Insurance Protection: Public Policy Lessons , 1978 .

[25]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  Subjective sensitivity analysis. , 1979 .

[26]  C. Plott,et al.  Economic Theory of Choice and the Preference Reversal Phenomenon , 1979 .

[27]  A. Tversky,et al.  Prospect Theory : An Analysis of Decision under Risk Author ( s ) : , 2007 .